


The Rose Tree

by ironysupplement



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Gen, Haunted Houses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironysupplement/pseuds/ironysupplement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spend the night in a haunted house? Two best friends, adventurous Zara and thoughtful Abby, are up for it. But their grand adventure is quite spoiled when a mysterious man and woman also turn up. They're looking for something, but they won't say what... and Abby and Zara have a feeling that dawn will be a long time coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rose Tree

Zara burrowed down in her sleeping bag, glowing with excitement and contentment. This was an adventure, a real adventure for her and Abby, the kind the other children in her school would be properly envious of. The two girls were bedded down in the drawing room at the old manor house, having snuck in through a ground-floor window that was thought to be secure but could be prised open just far enough for a twelve-year-old girl’s skinny arm to undo the catch.  
And it was worth it. Zara had saved up her pocket money for weeks, and then they had spent it all on candy, sodas, marshmallows, and even some jerky to serve as a bit of dinner. That had been Abby’s idea; she was the practical one. She didn’t get any pocket money, but that was all right; they shared everything.  
Now here they were, having the finest time either of them could remember. They had explored the old manor house to their heart’s content, shrieking like harpies for the fun of hearing the echoes, and going even in the off-limits places: the National Trust office (boring), and a filthy old room that must once have been the scullery, littered with enough fag ends and empty bottles to make the girls suspect that they weren’t the only ones making illicit use of the quiet old mouldering heap. Zara had been disappointed at the evidence that they weren’t the first to think of sneaking into the manor house, but Abby had reassured her that that meant the grownups knew about kids sneaking in, and tolerated it.  
“We can always say our older brother showed us the way in,” Abby had said, “Or even that he locked us in. Then it’s not our fault.”  
Zara glanced over at her best friend. They were just alike, except that Abby was a bit shorter than Zara and had curly brown hair. Zara's was blonder and straighter, and she kept it back from her face with a barrette. She stifled a yawn and burrowed deeper into her sleeping bag. Abby rearranged her blanket--she didn’t have a sleeping bag, so she had pulled down some of the couch cushions to make a sort of bed. The cusions had been quite dusty, and Zara sneezed.  
“All right, I’m done moving,” said Abby, smiling. “No more dust.”  
The fire they had laid in the old fireplace was beginning to burn low. The sound of rain on the manor house roof was wonderfully cosy. Zara wondered if there really were any ghosts here, and if she should wait until Abby was just on the edge of sleep and try to make an eerie moaning noise.

The fire had burned quite low indeed, and Abby was just falling asleep, when a door just outside the drawing room slammed.  
Both girls were awake in an instant.  
“It’s just the wind,” whispered Abby, even though Zara could see she had gone white. They clutched one another, knuckles white.  
Footsteps. Two sets.  
“It’s the police!” whispered Zara. “What do we do?”  
The door to the drawing room opened with such force that it rebounded from the wall, and someone hit the light switch.  
It was a man, Abby’s father’s age, in a gray suit. He had blond hair, cut long, and a cool expression.  
“In here, Sapphire,” he said, as calmly as if he had expected to find two frightened little girls in a historical monument after hours, and a tall blonde woman walked in through the drawing room door to join him. She was in a cornflower-blue dress and matching earrings, and she was very beautiful.  
“Are... are you the police?” Zara glanced over at Abby. They had discussed what they might do if their adventure were interrupted, but they hadn’t thought to coordinate their stories.  
The woman smiled at that. “No. My name is Sapphire, and this is Steel.”  
The man--Steel--did not seem interested in the introductions. He had turned away and was examining one of the bookshelves.  
“I don’t understand,” said Abby. “If you’re not the police... why are you here?”  
“We might ask you the same question,” snapped Steel, turning to face them, “and with considerably more justification.”  
“We were out riding bikes and it started raining,” began Abby. But Sapphire arched an eyebrow and shifted her gaze from Abby to the sleeping bag and empty candy wrappers, and Abby trailed off, shamefaced.  
“Steel and I also... came in out of the rain,” Sapphire said, a smile quirking around her mouth.  
“But you can’t have!” blurted Abby. “Your clothes--they’re dry.”  
“And we’d have heard your car,” said Zara.  
Sapphire walked over to them, knelt, and rested a hand on Zara’s shoulder. “Steel and I are... private investigators, of a sort. We’re looking for something very important; then we’ll be gone and you’ll never know we were here. And we won’t breathe a word about you to anyone. All right?”  
Despite herself, Zara felt her misgivings melt away as she looked into Sapphire’s blue eyes, as blue as her dress. Zara nodded. Sapphire looked at Abby. Abby nodded.  
“All right, then,” said Sapphire, gracefully drawing herself up to her full height. Steel stalked out of the drawing room without a glance behind him, but Sapphire turned off the light and wished the girls a good night before quietly shutting the door behind her. Zara, suddenly light-headed, nearly stumbled into Abby. It wasn't a game anymore, and she felt weak and foolish.  
"Now what?" she whispered.  
Abby looked thoughtful in the flickering firelight. "We need to get them to go."

The hallway was illuminated only by a tired old incandescent bulb in a worn fixture. It had been grand, once--all carved walnut panelling and rich carpeting--but the slightly flickering light made it look shabby. It smelled of wet galoshes.  
“Well?” Steel was at the top of the stairs, running his fingers along the edge of a painted-over metal panel set in the wall. He did not turn to look at his partner.  
“The locus isn’t in there, not exactly. The time breach is... diffuse, I’d say. Somewhere between potential and actuality.”  
Steel had the panel pulled off the wall. Behind it was a dumbwaiter. He craned his neck to see up the shaft--nothing.  
“So, the conditions are right for it to come about. How close to actuality?”  
Sapphire walked up the stairs, letting a hand trail along the balustrade. “Not long. Several hours, maybe.”  
“And the children?”  
“Human, 12.84 years. Here for a bit of adventure, I’d say.” Sapphire sounded amused. She laid a hand on her partner’s shoulder and rested her chin on it. “We shall just have to be careful.”  
“Adventure?” Steel stared at her, thunderstruck. “They knew the dangers, and they came anyway?”  
“Humans enjoy being scared. And besides, they don’t know the real dangers--oh!”  
 _Sapphire?_ Steel turned from the dumbwaiter and gripped his partner by the shoulders as she sagged. _Sapphire!_  
 _I’m all right, Steel._ Her eyes blinked open, the bright blue of her psychic energy already burning off, and her feet steadied under her. Steel released his grip, but kept her pinned with his stare.  
“Sorrow,” she said, at length. “Loneliness. Envy. Love, and guilt. And roses.”  
Steel blinked. “Roses?”  
“Yes. I just caught the edge of it, but there was a powerful scent of roses. It must be connected to the time breach.”  
“I’ve never heard of a time breach that _smelled_.”  
“Perhaps there’s a greenhouse,” said Sapphire, smiling and letting her gaze unfocus. Her eyes shone momentarily. “There’s a winter garden. We can start there.”  
Steel gestured for her to precede him down the stairs.

The rain was falling heavily over--and through--the great glass-paned room. Fat drops spattered across the remaining panes of glass, then ran together and poured through the missing ones. From time to time, a fragment of light picked out a solitary figure in blue, drifting across the feral garden.  
 _Anything? Your roses?_  
 _No._ The figure turned and walked directly back to the door where her partner leaned, backlit by the interior light. _If anything, the sense memory is weaker here._  
"Then where? We're running out of time."  
"The breach is diffuse," said Sapphire patiently. "Its trigger isn't anywhere in particular. Or anything."  
"Yes. You said. I remember." Steel followed his partner through the door into the lower hallway immediately outside what had once been a wine cellar, and shut away the winter garden. "But there is a process at work, dragging the breach along the continuum of possibility towards reality..." Steel paused, his face mostly in shadow, and seemed to frown.  
"And processes can be interrupted," prompted Sapphire.  
"Something is anchoring it to the present."  
"Yes. Something must be."  
"So is there anything in this house that is incongruous?"  
"It's a nineteenth-century Victorian folly, Steel. It has battlements that were never designed for battle, and there's a ruined temple on the grounds that was built ruined."  
The barest hint of a smile tugged at Steel's mouth. "True." He glanced idly into the wine cellar, then back at Sapphire. "Still, the house isn't uniformly nineteenth-century, is it? That cellar seems like a remnant of something older."  
Sapphire smiled. "You're quite right. Only the facade is pure nineteenth century." Her eyes glowed bright blue, clearly visible in the dim light. "This area--the ground floor of the house's primary wing--is the oldest section, and that cellar is built against the original eighteenth-century foundations. The secondary wing was added early in the nineteenth century; the second story of both wings, some years later. The facade was finished in 1876." The light faded, and Sapphire refocused her gaze on her partner.  
"So the anchor point might be anywhere." Steel rubbed his fingers against the wine cellar door, as if probing for a weakness.  
"Yes."  
"And you're certain it isn't in that room, with those girls?"  
"No more there than anywhere else, no."  
Steel held up a hand for silence.  
 _Did you hear that?_  
Sapphire stood perfectly still. A long moment passed.  
 _What did you hear?_ she ventured at length.  
 _Scrape of wood on stone. Faint, but near._ He inclined his head to indicate the direction--up the stairs, towards the house proper.  
 _Be careful, Steel,_ said Sapphire, as Steel faded into the shadows of the stairwell.  
But he did not answer.  
 _Steel?_  
“Steel!” Sapphire’s voice echoed around the enclosed space, but there was no answer, no comforting touch of a familiar mind. She was alone.


End file.
